"A bombastic coming-of-age novel....The White Boy Shuffle has the uncanny ability to make readers want to laugh and cry at the same time."Los Angeles Times
The first novel from National Book Critics Circle Award and Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout
Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided, downtrodden people."
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The White Boy Shuffle: A Novel
"A bombastic coming-of-age novel....The White Boy Shuffle has the uncanny ability to make readers want to laugh and cry at the same time."Los Angeles Times
The first novel from National Book Critics Circle Award and Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout
Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided, downtrodden people."
"A bombastic coming-of-age novel....The White Boy Shuffle has the uncanny ability to make readers want to laugh and cry at the same time."Los Angeles Times
The first novel from National Book Critics Circle Award and Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout
Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided, downtrodden people."
Paul Beatty is the author of the novels Tuff, Slumberland and The Sellout, and the poetry collections Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce. He was the editor of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor. In 2016, he became the first American to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout. In 2017, he was the winner the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award. He lives in New York City.
What People are Saying About This
Clarence Major
"Every sentence is an exploding firecracker, driving the story along at the speed of computer-light. While it is the funniest novel I've read in years. It's also dead serious, especially as it gained momentum and reaches that incredible, absurd, romantic, and terrifying end."
From the Publisher
"A bombastic coming-of-age novel . . . The White Boy Shuffle has the uncanny ability to make readers want to laugh and cry at the same time. Beatty mingles horrific reality with wild fancy without ever losing a grip on his story."—Los Angeles Times
"The White Boy Shuffle is one of those novels of enormous energy and verbal dazzle . . . Mr. Beatty is a fertile and original writer, one to watch."—The New York Times
"Laugh-out-loud funny and weep-in-silence sad . . . The language is always vibrant and alluring."—The Nation
"Ferious and funny and also streetwise."—The Boston Globe
Jessica Hagedorn
"What a wicked, wicked book. I laughed so hard, I hurt. I hurt so hard, I laughed. Like a 90s Richard Pryor peaking estatically on acid, Paul Beatty wrecks poetic hovac with the English venacular and captures the deadly cook beneath the heat of L.A.'s volitile landscape. Beatty's delicious cast of characters are very much of the moment: often bi-lingual, media-savvy, trigger-happy, and crazy beautiful."
“I start with the emotion. I don’t know what the story is. I don’t know who the characters are necessarily. I’m working on very little like, I’m thinking, ‘oh, well, the way this light looks through a window’, or something— very few details here and there. But I don’t know what happens in this story.” […]
“I wish I could tell you that I went to a cabin and wrote it perfectly and got it in on time, and it just flowed out of me. But really, the truth of the matter is, it came in fits and starts. And it was written on notepads and half-filled notebooks and phone apps […]
With its perma-summer, its dramatic scenery, and its status as the capital of the entertainment industry, L.A. is the quintessential Californian dream town. Even the smog contributes to the city’s vibe by providing breathtaking sunsets. It’s no wonder so many classic books have been set in La La Land, and it was a serious challenge […]